Auditor general, integrity commissioner volunteer to reduce budgets

In a sign of the times, Canada’s auditor general and public sector integrity commissioner outlined voluntary budget reduction plans in presentations to the Senate’s finance committee Tuesday.

Michael Ferguson and Mario Dion assured Senators that their offices could continue to operate effectively with a five per cent budget cut, in keeping with upcoming reductions across the public service.

Ferguson said the Office of the Auditor General has identified significant savings that can be made in the corporate services areas of the office, and also noted that money will be freed up with the conclusion of a $15-million special project that looked at audit methodology.

“We feel that we will still be able to conduct performance audits, financial audits, special examinations,” he said. “We will need some help from the government in terms of making some legislative changes and some changes to Orders in Council to free up some of the money.”

The belt-tightening comes at an opportune time. According to a proactive disclosure on the Office of the Auditor General’s website, the firm that hired the new unilingual auditor general received a contract of $56,500 to do so.

On Tuesday, Ferguson told Senators he is taking his goal to learn French seriously.

“My language training has started, and it is the one item in my daily calendar that I try not to cancel,” Ferguson said.

When the Senators later heard from Dion, he said the Public Sector Integrity Commission would not be significantly affected by a voluntary five per cent reduction, because it is not currently using its full budget. The office is still relatively young, and Dion has been working to build up its staff and capacity.

Both Ferguson and Dion were making their debut appearances before the committee, and also shared with the senators the direction they see their offices taking over the course of their terms.

Ferguson said he plans to stay the course as auditor general, at least in the short-term, and not introduce any major changes to the office that was built up by Denis Desautels and Sheila Fraser.

“I have the good fortune of having joined an organization that is widely respected, and that, from my vantage point, appears to be very well run,” he said.

Dion, who is being carefully monitored after taking over the position from the disastrous Christiane Ouimet, made a point of declaring how he intended to make the office relevant again by taking a more aggressive approach, and finding cases of wrongdoing, which never happened under Ouimet.

“I believe strongly in the need to deter people who might be tempted to commit wrongdoings, or might be tempted to exercise reprisals,” Dion said. “I will err on the side of making the decision that pursues the objectives of the act, as opposed to trying to reserve those decisions to the most exceptional situations.”

He assured senators that he expects to find the office’s first case of wrongdoing within a few months.

David Hutton, the executive director of FAIR, was there to hear Dion’s testimony. FAIR is one of the accountability organizations that has openly questioned Dion’s appointment, saying a former public servant is not the right person to serve as its watchdog.

Hutton was pleased with the tough line of questioning carried out by the Senators, but surprised to hear Dion was willing to make cuts to the office.

“I thought it was rather strange that he would voluntarily agree to budget cuts in an organizations that’s so tiny, and has such a big mandate,” Hutton said. “They ought to be able to justify whatever small budget they have many times over by bringing to justice people who are defrauding the public purse.”

He sees it as another example of Dion not bringing a sufficiently aggressive approach to his new job.

“To me it indicates, again, a sort of desire to be pleasing the political masters,” he said.